ISEKI_Food 4Towards the innovation of the food chain through innovation of education in Food Studies

The ISEKI_Food-4 Erasmus Thematic Network (IFood4) has carried out activities from 1 October 2011 till 30 September 2014, coordinated by Paola Pittia, University of Teramo, Faculty of Bioscience and Technology for Food Agriculture and Environment.

Here below, a brief summary of the activities and outcomes achieved so far, is reported. Most of the outcomes are available at the website of the ISEKI-Food Association (www.iseki-food.net), a non-profit organisation founded in 2005 to be a leading network for all stakeholders in the food supply chain with regard to education, legislation and communication and to sustain the activities of the past ISEKI-Food projects.

For more information about the IFood4 project as well as the ISEKI-Food Association activities please contact Paola Pittia at ppittia [at] unite [dot] it or the association secretariat at office [at] iseki-food [dot] net. As main outcome a collection of the main results of the project are available in a user-friendly USB pen that you could require from Paola Pittia.

Summary of the activities

The ISEKI_Food-4 Erasmus Thematic Network project main objective is to develop a framework of stakeholders aimed (i) to lead innovation in Food studies education and training by matching the needs of enterprises and, more in general, the job market, (ii) to promote innovation in the Food Science and Technology academic sector and (iii) to favour the internationalisation of the European Food studies.

The workplan is fostering more in particular the specific objectives:

Modernization of the education and training of students in Food studies, by the development of guidelines to upgrade HE courses and training programmes comprising advanced scientific disciplines as well as soft skills for the Food Scientists and Technologists of the future. Innovative teaching materials (e-learning courses, books, 3D virtual labs) will be developed to face the change in the learning approaches of the new generation of student;

Implementation of the labour market role of the third level of education (in particular, PhD programmes) and promotion of the employability and entrepreneurship of FS&T graduated and Food professional by proposing (i) training tools to develop the proper skills and (ii) a virtual environment to favour their networking;

Creation of a framework offering lecturing qualification for university teaching staff.

The consortium of the partners is constituted by reputed HE institutions, Associations, Enterprises and Research Organizations with interest on Education. The total number of partners is 89, 86 out of them are from 27 EU countries and 3 from no-EU countries (United States, Brazil and Israel). The consortium of the IFood4 project partners has been widened during the project development by 52 associated partners from 19 no-EU and 9 EU countries that contributed to the promotion, implementation, of the project activities and gave an international impact to this Erasmus thematic network.

The work under these main objectives has been developed through four implementation work packages (WP3, WP4, WP5, WP6). Additional three work packages deal with the project management (WP8), quality project plan (WP1) and dissemination (WP2); exploitation of the project results is performed within another specific work package (WP7). The WP8 activities dealt with management and were supervised by the Steering Committee; it was constituted by the coordinator, work package coordinators and co-coordinators.

Main project outcomes

The ISEKI_Food 4 project (www.iseki-food4.eu) has completed all the tasks and activities that include:

a Virtual toolbox with information and documents, best practices to set, design, implement and modernise food courses/programmes according to the new skills needs and the new jobs requested by the job-market (www.iseki-food.net/training/moduledesign)

six issues of the International ISEKI e-journal (official journal of the ISEKI_Food Association, peer-reviewed)

The IFood4 project network have been working to widely disseminate the results of the project and favour an effective and positive impact of the main results, products and outcomes in order to improve and modernise the European HE in Food studies along with its quality at EU and international level. Results of the activities will be further edit as articles to be published on international journals, presented at conferences and meetings with the involvement of all the stakeholders of the value food supply chain.